The Swingin’ Jazz Nutcracker

The Colonial Theater in association with The Pa Jazz Alliance & The Scranton Jazz Festival presents: The Swinging Jazz Nutcracker Suite performed by the Emmy-nominated Scranton Jazz Festival Big Band with music arranged and imagined by Milton “Shorty” Rogers and Duke Ellington. This exciting 17 piece jazz orchestra will take you on a holiday journey transporting you back to the Big Band era. You’ll be dancing in your seat while experiencing that swinging brassy sound with clever insightful story narration.

What do Peter Tchaikovsky, Shorty Rogers, and Duke Ellington have in common? Well, they are all innovators, composers, and arrangers. You will hear the incredible melodies of Tchaikovsky re-imagined by two great jazz master composers, arrangers Shorty Rogers and Duke Ellington. It was May of 1960 when both Shorty Rogers and Duke Ellington were hard at work creating jazz big band arrangements of this iconic ballet music. Interestingly, Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn began recording their version of the Nutcracker on the very day (May 26, 1960) that Shorty Rogers finished his project. Both were only minutes from one another while recording these masterpieces. Duke at Radio Recorders in West Hollywood, CA, and Shorty at RCA Victor’s Music Center in Los Angeles. Whether or not these two major record labels caught wind of the other’s project and spurred their top jazz talent to come up with a competing version, and whose was finished first, is a matter of conjecture. However, we now have some amazing jazz versions of the Sugar Plum Fairy, Waltz of The Flowers, The Arabian Dance, and The Tea Dance to name a few. We hope you enjoy this holiday production of the Swingin Jazz Nutcracker Suite performed by the Emmy-nominated Scranton Jazz Festival Big Band under the direction of Maestro Marko Marcinko.